I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Israel’s war on the Palestinian people in Gaza

Editor’s remarks: The
army of Israeli war-mafia has killed more than 200 Palestinians,
injured thousands and has methodically destroyed and is destroying the
houses and infrastructure of Gaza mercilessly. In return, the
Palestinian resistence has managed to inflict one casualty on an Israeli
citizen. As far as I am concerned I am deeply unhappy over the ongoing
situation and also deeply sad over the loss
of life of any human being whether Palestinian or Israeli. But the
political, economic strangulation and siege of Gaza and the occupation
of the West Bank must end. Israel should stop its war of aggression on
Gaza and stop its brutal oppresion of the people of Palestine. Merely
because Israel has the support of the United States for whatever it does
against the Palestinians and in the Middle East is not a justification
to kill and destroy a captive people. This is total madness.

Israel is hitting Palestinian civilians, and it is hitting them hard.
To even speak of a ‘war’ risks confusion. This is not a clash or a
conflict, a tit-for-tat cycle or tribal tussle. This is an anti-colonial
revolt.

Israel is at war with the Palestinian people. More accurately, Israel
is writing a new, brutal chapter in its ongoing war against the
Palestinian people, a horror story stretching back decades, and,
appallingly, with more pages to be written.

As of now, the Israeli military has killed 100 Palestinians, and wounded an estimated 680, figures that continue to rise. OCHA,
a UN body, reported at 15:00 local time Thursday that 58 civilians were
among the dead, including 11 women and 21 children. The headline in
today’s Daily Telegraph: ‘Half of Gaza’s dead ‘are women and children”. OCHA also recorded 70 destroyed homes, with 342 housing units destroyed or severely damaged overall.

On Thursday, an unnamed IDF official told
Israeli media that strikes on the Gaza Strip were being conducted at a
rate of one attack every four and a half minutes. The source also
claimed that when “Gaza residents see the great damage to the Strip”, it
“will speak for itself”. Collective punishment then, wrapped and
packaged as ‘self-defence’.